Blog Stats

Archives

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 157 other followers

Copyright notice

This blog entry and all other text on this blog is copyrighted, you are free to read it, discuss it with friends, co-workers and anyone else who will pay attention.

If you want to cite this blog article or quote from it in a not for profit website or blog then please feel free to do so as long as you provide a link back to this blog article.

If as a school teacher or university teacher you wish to use content from my blog for the education of students then you may do so as long as the teaching materials produced from my blogged writings are not distributed for profit to others. Also at University level I ask that you provide a link to my blog to the students.

If you want to quote from this blog in an academic paper published in an academic journal then please contact me before you submit your paper to enable us to discuss the matter.

If you wish to reuse my text in a way where you will be making a profit (however small) please contact me before you do so, and we can discuss the licensing of the content.

If you want to contact me then please do so by e-mailing me at Chalmers University of Technology, I am quite easy to find there as I am the only person with the surname “foreman” working at Chalmers. An alternative method of contacting me is to leave a comment on a blog article. If you do not know which one to comment on then just pick one at random, please include your email in the comment so I can contact you.

OK we need to measure energy sometimes in life, dieters, electric power bills and scientists all need a means of expressing how much energy.

There is the joule (defined by a force and a distance), the foot pound, the electron volt, British Thermal Unit (defined as the energy required to heat a volume of water by 1 degree F), calorie, the horsepower-hour, kilotons of TNT (for nuclear bomb yields), ergs and some others.

I am not sure what would be the most silly energy unit, but my suggestion if anyone wants a silly unit is the elephant inch. It is the energy required to lift the average elephant one inch and we will define the standard as being done at Camden lock which is close to London Zoo. Please write in using the comments if you think you can devise a more silly unit of energy, please do not worry I will not be replacing the joule and the electron volt in my teaching with the elephant inch.

Official notice

Please note that the views and ideas expressed within this blog are my own personal views and are not necessarily shared by my employer (Chalmers University of Technology), anyone else or by any other organisation.
Also please note that some activities, experiments and materials mentioned in this blog require specialist training and/or special facilities to perform or use safely. If you are in any doubt as to your competence to try out anything mentioned in the blog then please seek expert advice before attempting to do something. While all reasonable care is taken in the writing of this blog, I accept no responsibility for any death, injury, burn marks on the floor, boredom, social harm, property damage, feeling of self disgust or any other harm / loss caused as a result of an act, substance or process discussed in this blog.